Warsaw To USA
Following Nazi Germany's attack against Poland in 1939, Rabbi Schneersohn refused to leave Warsaw. He remained in the city during the bombardments and its capitulation to Nazi Germany. He gave the full support of his organizations to assist as many Jews as possible to flee the invading armies. With the intercession of the United States Department of State in Washington, DC and with the lobbying of many Jewish leaders on behalf of the Rebbe (and, reputedly, with the help of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr), he was finally granted diplomatic immunity and given safe passage to go via Berlin to Riga, and then on to New York City, where he arrived on 19 March 1940.
When Schneersohn came to America, two of his chassidim came to him, and said not to start up all the activities in which Lubavitch had engaged in Europe, because "America is different." To avoid disappointment, they advised him not even to try. Schneersohn wrote, "Out of my eyes came boiling tears", and undeterred, the next day he started the first Lubavitcher Yeshiva in America, declaring that "America is no different."
The community in Crown Heights remained small, and synagogue records show that at some points during 1950 they struggled to form a regular minyan.
Read more about this topic: Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn
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